


the last thing on my mind

by ohtempora



Category: Goon (2011)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-25
Updated: 2013-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-06 01:21:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1100758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohtempora/pseuds/ohtempora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once, Xavier forgot about the beauty of the game.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the last thing on my mind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LovelyPoet](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LovelyPoet/gifts).



> This ended up being a bit about Xavier and hockey, and a bit about Doug's worldview. I hope you don't mind!

This is what he tells people: Xavier loves hockey because he’s good at it and it’s a way to get him what he wants. Girls—even when he was in juniors—and money and recognition, people stopping him to tell him that they saw his goal last night and shit, it was pretty, it was the game winner, how awesome was that.

It didn’t start that way.

There is, abstractly, beauty in the game beyond perfect passing or a top-shelf snipe. It takes him until the concussion and Ross fucking Rhea to remember how much he likes the scrape of skates on ice, the flat noise of the puck, the crunch of the boards. The sound of the crowd.

(It takes him longer to remember hits can be beautiful too. Maybe they shouldn’t be.)

Doug Glatt is shit at real hockey. He can barely stand up in his skates, his ankles wobbling, even once he’s given ones that are a custom fit and theoretically better. But Xavier can appreciate there’s something beautiful and vicious in the way that he takes people apart with his fists, brutally efficient as soon as he’s been told to go by the coach.

The last game of their regular season (it’s a season, even if it’s in the minors) Doug gets the shit kicked out of him and they lead on the hat trick with less than ninety seconds left, and Xavier knows there’s a lot of things that can happen in that time, that all the Shamrocks have to do is pull their goalie and he doesn’t know if Belcior’s taken too many Percocets to withstand the flurry or if he hasn’t taken enough, and—

In hockey anything can change until the final buzzer, and he has to love that too, because it’s part of the game.

—and they win it for Doug, even though Oleg misses sealing it for sure with the empty-netter, his shot going wide—and the eighth seed might be the lowest but they’re fucking _in_.

He was a highly touted prospect, he was drafted high and he fucking deserved to be, because Xavier knew how to win. It doesn’t make this victory any less sweet.

He visits Doug at the hospital after the game, wearing a Highlanders shirt. He thinks Doug will appreciate the gesture. He doesn’t know what to bring so he goes empty-handed.

Eva is in the waiting room, and she smiles tiredly at him when he stops in front of her, unsure about what to say.

“We won,” Xavier gets out eventually, eyeing her up and down. She nods. 

“I know,” Eva responds. “He does too, but you should go in and tell him so he hears it from you. That would be better."

When he gets in the hospital room, Doug has a cast on his ankle and stitches in his face from blocking that shot. There’s bruising under his eyes, around his nose. He looks like he hurts.

“We won,” Xavier says, before he even says hello. It looks painful, but Doug grins at him, wide and unbothered. He's probably on a lot of pain medicine. 

“Knew you could do it,” he tells Xavier, looking like he wants to thump him on the back, though he can’t really get out of the bed enough to do so. Xavier sits a careful distance away just in case Doug decides to move and do it anyways.

“Yeah,” Xavier says. “After you fought—yeah.”

“Laflamme, I—I just wanted to help the team any way I could,” Doug says. He looks at the cast on his leg. The twins are probably going to try to draw on it. “I mean, it’s what I’m out there to do. And we made it to the playoffs, didn't we?”

“You did help the team.” Xavier narrows his eyes at him. “I have been skating since I don’t know when, and I have been playing on hockey teams almost as long, and I don’t know why you did what you did tonight, because no one on my team has before, but I am glad.”

“Okay,” Doug says. It takes him a little while, and Xavier leans in and squeezes his shoulder.

“Good,” Xavier tells him.

He thinks, about hockey and the beauty of the game. He’s starting to remember how it felt when he first started to play.

They’re going to fucking win. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
